Quest of the Chosen Witch
by NickeltheRed
Summary: Oh, what a life it is, to be an O'Sainhan. Season 3 revisited, starring Fiona!
**All rights go to Disney Channel and the individual creator(s) of the show. I own nothing related to the series.**

 **The following plot is also moderately inspired by the events that were once arranged to occur if the original _So Weird_ season 3 (with Cara/Fi) took place instead. But I tossed Annie in here too.**

* * *

"Shh." Aunt Melinda lowers herself along the edge of the bed she's letting her niece sleep in and smooths out the girl's hair. Fiona's fourteen now and hardly a child anymore, being very bright and bold for her age. But somehow, Melinda forgets this sometimes. "It's over now."

All the comforts of a regular home are offered to Fiona on a silver platter; except that, she soon learns nothing ever truly fades away. It won't.

No matter what, traces of the past are always left behind.

 **.**

 **.**

Rick materializes before Annie one night when she visits her mother's house, and not even the mystical Panther Spirit standing guard is going to hold him back.

He starts by insisting on her surrounding over the ring that Fiona has bestowed on her.

Annie tries to be the sensible one and refuses him, arguing it's hers to keep. Fi said so. That's what she wanted.

But Rick knows better. He still knows a lot more about the mysterious world next door than she does. He firmly explains that this is not her path to take. The Fates have already woven their golden threads together and they all have their eyes set dead-cold on Fiona. Nothing's going to waver them. Fiona was born for certain reasons Annie is not.

Yes, Annie may be magically protected by the Panther Spirit and he _was_ meant to become hers, nevertheless, she's no powerful witch. She's just an ordinary girl who was given a gift.

Feeling rejected...maybe feeling a little _deceived_ even, Annie eventually caves, and bows her head with a sigh, slowly slipping off Fiona's ring, never to see it again.

She faints when Rick flashes out of sight, drained of energy.

Her hand feels incredibly naked in the morning after she wakes.

 **.**

 **.**

Molly feels a bit...off lately. The only who really, truly notices this is Jack.

He's pretty sure it might have something to do with the fact that Fiona doesn't contact them as much as she used to, and when she does, her answers are all blunt inside a letter, or, she sounds unusually rushed over the phone.

He shrugs when Molly is forced to press the _End Call_ button sooner than she hoped. The speaker-phone goes dead. "It's probably...just a bad connection, Mom," he speculates. "She's fine."

Jack's own worry though gradually swirls in darker tones overtime and that worry turns into a constant disappointment, then eventually it strongly resembles resentment.

All that he's done to simply look out for his baby sister, and after he thrived to be honorable man of their little wounded family! And this is the thanks he gets? Fiona is the one person he was raised to love and protect unconditionally, and now she can't find time for a two-minute conversation?

 **.**

 **.**

When one is stuck inside the core of a digital computer file for another three years or so, with very little to do other than to think over the past, reanalyze it, and separate each opinion and mishap that ever manifested, things tend to change.

There's hardly anything Bricriu can control these days. And it's nearly _maddening_ since it's purely in his nature to take control, to be the parasite, the puppet master, never the puppet itself.

See, before this, he grew bored and left the Scottish highlands behind him—he even grew bored when he mixed forces with the Darkness—and that's when he began to play his old games again, and honestly, he then began experiment with newer things, which turned out to be _worse_ than the Darkness, because it ultimately landed himself here, rendering his existence unused and futile.

And he can't number the _exact_ date when Fiona had decided to open a new private messaging thread on her internet connection and write to him deliberately, typing out too many questions he could possibly answer in that same time frame. It _did_ take some time after all, learning how this mortal technology functions and familiarizing himself with all the codes and other cyber gadgets Fiona's computer is made off. And the act of typing back from _inside_ the motherboard itself is not as easy as it would seem. Yet, he manages to do so, and the two of them end up spending hours typing back and forth, posting one response right after the other.

That's not all.

Day after day, Fiona's choice of words grow increasingly desperate. Session after session, he personally feels more alive each time she clicks on their thread, keeping it active. The electric jolt of energy somehow fuels his Fae magick and Bricriu becomes more anxious and desperate along with her, longing to get free and being able to find a physical body again. Sometimes he shamefully, slyly, drags out their screen discussions just to hold onto that feeling a little longer.

 _...Dad's spirit came by again...talking about the usual stuff..._

Bricriu can't really see her at the moment, but she's idly running her fingers across her old Celtic ring that has been put back onto her thumb, waiting for him to reply.

 _You're not ready, Little Duck, as I keep telling you._

 _Then, why me? Why now?_

He takes his sweet time to answer her today.

 _...You come from the strongest bloodline of witches my people have ever seen, Little Duck. I shall grant you that much... But don't go battling the Darkness when you hardly know the Craft. Not even half of the White spells are just out there for your taking._

Fiona swiftly types back.

 _Then you tell me, Spunkie._

 **.**

 **.**

Molly's barely getting three hours of sleep per night. She gets headaches rather frequently now and she swallows down two bottles of painkillers in a week, but that doesn't take the edge off.

The bus is parked by seven o'clock that late summer's night and they eat out at a proper restaurant for once instead of inhaling greasy hamburgers bought from a fast food window. When their group is finally called over and seated near a fountain, a young waiter comes over to introduce himself as _Berry_ , and Molly spots the glittering cart of alcohol sitting not that far behind him. Her fingers jerk, drumming around the heavy plastic menu she's holding and it takes a surprising amount of willpower merely to refocus on what they're all ordering.

She quickly picks up the fresh water Berry offers her shortly afterwards and she downs the entire glass with another grimace, wishing it had a little more of a kick.

 **.**

 **.**

Fiona is diving deeper into the Craft—into the seductive Black kind, the self-therapeutic White kind, also the Ancient kind that remains totally neutral—she tries every curse, hex bag, and incantation Bricriu mentions out for size. She's frankly frantic to do _anything_ she can do to gain a little more insight to what's happening in the Netherworld, or what will happen to her family, or her very future, if the Darkness succeeds her.

Then she performs real séances by herself. She summons many faeries and fellow nature spirits to her side, both good and bad ones, Seelie and Unseelie; but most of them are bad because they're relatively easier to provoke and easier to bribe.

She is getting a stronger grasp on the _quest_ laid out before her now; though magick, no matter what, always comes with a price.

She blacks out on occasion from the spiritual overload, and how she feels about that...well...it's light and heavy at the same time. It's corruption and clarity rolled into one. She's moodier, reckless, sassier, and cockier these days while being influenced by the shadowy ones she works with behind closed doors. This also empowers her. Her subtle and sure slip into the other world makes her all the more confident. She can overlook her anxiety for longer periods of time, and some days, she can forget her own humanity, her own weakness.

Concerned and baffled by her personality shift, her Aunt Melinda willingly sends her packing to Ireland in the fall, back to her Grandmama Kathleen, hoping that a total change in scenery may help Fiona overcome this new _rebellious_ stage...even if, they all know better on some level.

While staying there, Fiona goes out and drinks ale with the ground trolls at midnight, she dances half-naked in faraway reclusive meadows to the sound of satyr flutes at high noon, she feasts on the exotic fruits from the Goblin Market by morning, she laughs and celebrates around tall fires made by the Salamanders. She swims in the natural ponds of the Green Isle, and she meditates in the country's old tattered cemeteries and speaks with the wandering ghosts that find her.

Everything non-human is drawn in by her old Celtic-knotted ring.

 **.**

 **.**

Beer cans litter the apartment floor. The stench rouses Molly, tangled in strange blue cotton sheets, in a strange bed, with a strange man. Her head is pounding, and her memory is foggy, but once she squints at the smoldering tan-skinned gentlemen lying next to her with a coiling snake tattoo on his right shoulder, the previous night comes rushing back to her.

She hisses under her breath, "Oh, god."

She was at the bar late last night without the group knowing it. That's when (...Alfred...no, no it's Adam) appeared on the stool next to hers, and then various shots of whiskey and smooth jazz followed in their wake. She'd been ignoring her phone calls from both Irene and Jack while she forgot her own problems for one night and chose to mount Adam's classy motorbike back to his place.

Feeling guilty and on edge, Molly quietly slips away from Adam's lazy touch, redresses herself rather carelessly then bends over to gather up both of her high heels, heading for the door and the door only. She passes a mirror on the way. And, oh goodness, look at her eyes! Her hair! Her lipstick!

Great. Now she'll be late for rehearsal.

 **.**

 **.**

 _"Fiona. It's Jack. Please call me back. Or get a new phone if you don't know how to work the one Aunt Melinda gave you."_

Five days pass.

 _"Fiona, good god, please answer the phone for once! Why is it so hard? It's your brother, in case you've forgotten you have one. Bye."_

Jack dismisses the outside picnic for a minute or two and climbs into the bus again, checks how stable the reception is, and when he sees he has no missed calls yet...something in him just snaps and he throws his cell at the metal-plated wall with much unneeded force. It smashes in half. A part of him, the logical part of him, is very relieved to know that he's alone right now...because he would hate it if the rest of them would actually see him like this...so _fuckin'_ scared, and let down, and so pissed off.

So what is _happening_ to them?

His family is falling apart. Both women are slowly going AWOL on him. What's he got if they don't need him anymore? And he's the only one who's willing to brave the journey and keep himself sane and far out of temptation's reach, sacrificing his own wants and happiness for theirs.

 **.**

 **.**

Annie still has her secrets. Like how she misses magick desperately. Morning after evening after morning, she longs for one more close encounter with something inhuman just to prove she wasn't making stories up in her head all along, and she spends her normal weeks pining and praying something else might find her instead. Even her Panther is hard to feel out these days.

Her mother intervenes when Annie's appetite begins to wane, then waxes, and wanes again, and then...she's talking in her sleep, she's drawing bizarre symbols on all of her music sheets in place of writing down songs. She's failing her current classes, she's missed meetings with two top producers by now, she can't keep any new friends, and at home she simply sits in front of the window for hours on end, staring through the glass, seeking, watching. For what, her mother does not understand.

The nightmares, and her strange drawings, and her random ramblings, endless obsessive searching for ghosts and goblins that do not possibly exist any longer cycle over and over again until Annie is utterly lost to her reality.

Right before the Holidays, she's submitted to a mental institution.

 **.**

 **.**

This winter eve is cold.

Outside on her grandmother's doorstep, the common world lies quiet and dark. Somewhere in the distance though, Fi's ears can make out the gentle ringing of silver bells when the twelfth hour tolls.

She treads lightly over the valley of fallen snow stretched out before her, searching the tree line for any signs of movement. Her heart pumps steadily, yet eagerly within her chest. Bricriu, liberated and unbound tonight, zips past her and his orb of light dances in circles overhead to rejoice. He releases a single gleeful chuckle.

Fi's wearing a white dress with a blue scarf and matching boots herself to complement the season.

A shepherd dog barks once beyond the ivory hills.

Then, _they_ appear, slinking out together from the shadows towards the open splash of moonlight, the spirits of Yuletide nights. All of them are pearl-white pale with shimmering dark blue hair and round hollow black eyes, bodies layered in ice crystals and holly leaves.

The wind picks up current and it echoes around them, beating like drum. Fi feels their connecting energy sink into her and she starts to spin, faster and faster and faster. They all form a circle, surrounding her, beginning to chant, in which Fi soon joins them.

She can smell it now as they continue to reel...the phantom fragrance of Spring, the wildflowers, the river, the long grass.

The Veil is thinning.

There comes a bright light blossoming from behind, swallowing them whole, and then, they are gone, whisked away to the other side.

 **.**

 **.**

"Mom?"

Molly doesn't hear Jack, or she's tuning him out; he can't really tell.

She just sits there at the breakfast table of their separate motel room, outlined by a single lamp that shines more orange than yellow, and she stares straight ahead, entranced by the nothingness in front of her. Her lips are chapped and he can literally see that she hasn't changed her clothes since her last show a day and a half ago. He also pretends that he doesn't catch the empty rum bottle tossed into the sink.

"Mom," he whispers again, crouching to her level. "Please. Look at me."

Molly finally stirs and she rubs her eyes, smearing her purple mascara, sniffing once. Jack reacts immediately and rests a hand upon hers, giving it a squeeze. "It's okay, Mom. Really, it's fine. It's going to be okay. If this about Fiona, then don't worry. She's stubborn, remember? She's okay. Besides, she's at Grandma's now and no one else knows to handle her better than Grandma, right?"

Molly smiles a little bit in spite of her breaking heart. Jack's always the thoughtful one. Taking care of them, growing up faster than he had to just to be able to fill Rick's shoes. Though he's a lot like her, actually. And that kills her. Because Molly thinks it should have been _her_ , not Rick. She should've been in that car, not him. _Her_ family is the one that's different, it's cursed; always has been. Now, she's the parent who is left standing alone and she's supposed to be in charge, and yet somehow, her son's right here, being the one who wants to nurse her to health.

"I should've listened...," she whispers heatedly under her breath, head bent, and she sniffs a second time. Jack doesn't know what she means by this, and he gazes up at her in anticipation, but he continues to pat her back anyway. "...I should've listened when Ma tried to tell me about this family. I should've known. We're cursed. Our family is a curse..."

 **.**

 **.**

Kathleen's not dull. She's old and brittle in her bones now, sure, but her wits are still well intact.

She's been perfectly fine living on her own after her husband's death of last year and taking her youngest grandchild under her wing.

So, of course, she's not dull. In fact, she _believes_.

She believes in Fiona. Because if she's wholly honest with herself and faces the facts, one doesn't just grow up in Ireland—as an O'Sainhan at that—and _never_ hears about faeries at least one point in time. She even remembers the tales her own grandmother used to tell her when she was Fiona's age.

Magick runs in their blood, supposedly, and Kathleen does the math. Too many things have happened to her family (and to Molly's family) to be called tragedies or mistakes.

Their family, as a whole, has always been just so...so...so weird.

And she knows Fiona didn't run off of her coldheartedly. No, she just figures that Fiona has a destiny tied to the Fae Realm and she had to go. The girl's old enough to choose her own path without all of them breathing down her neck, anxious something might happen to her like it did to Rick. Fi doesn't need to be fixed. She needs to face her history head-on. Kathleen did notice how Fiona was changing too, and how she grew more distant while she stayed here at the house with her. But Kathleen opted not to pry. She will wait, she decided, until Fiona will sit her down one day and tell her what's real and what's fake. She hated the idea of becoming the nosey old grouch in Fiona's story anyway.

Unlike Molly, and unlike Rick's sister Melinda, Kathleen deems magick a real occupation. And it seems as though Fiona is very talented at it...just like _she_ was...once upon a time, when she was a little girl, before her own parents forced her to let that habit go and move on, looking towards the twentieth century.

Kathleen has lost that part of her early on, and it's been a secret that has long been kept inside of herself, but she hasn't felt whole since then. (Marrying the man she fell in love with and having Molly for a daughter certainly helped to fill that empty space, but, a slit in the fabric of her soul still remains.)

So, when her daughter calls the landline from across the States to ask about Fiona, Kathleen weaves a tale of enchantment of her own. She informs Molly that Fiona has decided to spread her wings. She has recently left Ireland for a time to do a little bit of private _soul-searching_.

Molly doesn't like it of course. She yells at her for letting Fiona go out on her own like that without her being the first one to know about it, but Kathleen is her mother, and she's not fazed by her daughter's criticism. Not over this. She remains calm though and assures Molly she will get Fiona's message whenever she returns.

She doesn't dare say _'If she returns.'_

 **.**

 **.**

As the third sun rises to its highest point beyond the forest, Fiona and Bricriu cross paths with a Crone along the dirt road. The elderly woman with the black robes and long grey hair takes Fiona's hand and begins to read her palm, inspecting her ring in the process.

"Ah," she reflects wisely. "No wonder why you're here. Laid out behind you is a special bloodline that is older than myself. You must be brave, child, for what is to come your way. Destiny is about to take full charge at you finally." And the Crone raises a small vial from her deep pockets and wets her fingertips with what happens to be unicorn blood, drawing sigils of protection and power up Fiona's arms. They sink into her skin, fading from the naked eye, but forever there they'll stay. Fiona watches gratefully as the Crone finishes her ritual. It's amazing to feel that nothing in this Netherworld, where the Old Ways reign and human rules mean very little to its inhabitants, can frighten her away. She's just as comfortable here as she is back home, if not more so.

For the next three days, Fiona and Bricriu stay at her cottage. Fiona eats, gardens, sleeps, and reads beside the Crone.

There is still a restlessness twisting in her gut and she counts the stars for answers.

On the fourth morning, the Crone offers her a pan-pipe, a handmade broom with long black bristles, and one brown knitted sac for carrying bread along the way. "You must go meet the King and Queen. They know you're here. Travel light and travel sound," she advises Fiona. "Always remember the blood of your Druid ancestors, child, and the stories of your grandmothers, because they ring true. And do not sleep in these woods without a lighting a fire first to keep the Shadows at bay while you rest."

Fiona follows the Crone's instructions well as she and the Spunkie cross the running stream, then through the moors, and the cornfields. Fiona keeps walking at a steady pace and Bricriu floats leisurely above her head every step of the way, so far making good progress. That is, until they reach a crossroad.

Fiona looks to the left, right, left, then upwards, peering at the Spunkie hovering there.

"Do you which way?"

"How would I know?" His light darts back and forth when speaking.

"You are a faerie, aren't you?" she counters.

"Even our realm is wide and big like yours is, Little Duck. There's places here I haven't seen before even. Spunkies typically don't leave their swampy domain, anyhow...and when _I_ did, I crossed the Veil to roam amongst humans instead, remember?"

Fi huffs, hands on her hips. "Some Spirit Guide you've become."

"Be alert, Little Duck," he calls out abruptly, ducking behind her. "We aren't alone anymore."

Fiona spins in place, and the first moving thing she sees besides the swaying willow tree is a large wolf coming towards them, paws padding through the damp soil. His coat is a dark blend of black and rust brown and he's so thin that Fiona can almost make out the curve of his ribs.

"Your scent is strange to me," he greets her in Common Speech, "...What brings a lass like you so far away from your homeland?"

"I need to see King **Orebron and Queen** Tatiana..." Fiona stares back at him cautiously. His teeth are visible and they are sharp. She's heard every wolf story there was written is books, so she knows they can be wild or friendly, big and bad, or great pack guardians of mankind. The tricky part is: figuring out which kind each wolf is before completely trusting them. And this lone wolf's tone is fickle by itself...it's raspy and low, sort of intimidating, although that still doesn't add up to pure evil. "...They are expecting me any day now, so I shouldn't waste time."

"Then you are on right path," he replies, ears perking up. "Unless, you know the way of course..."

With this, Fiona hesitates, reconsidering the crossroads again. Which is the right direction? Should she go left, or chose right? Which one is actually the safest to reach the King and Queen in one piece?

"I...don't know. Not exactly." she admits to him. "Which one is which?"

"Well, perhaps I can show you two," the wolf offers finally. "I can take you there with less pain and suffering, if you'd like. I'll tell you the secrets to these woods. Otherwise...if you chose wrong, there are cave trolls and are dragons you may need to watch out for."

"Dragons like Puff? Or dragons like Smaug?"

The wolf tips his head in that cut old-fashioned canine-like manner. "What is a Smaug?"

"Uh, never mind. Let's go." Fiona can't help but to smile at this before she changes the subject. "I'm Fiona by the way, and this is my Spunkie."

"Fridolf," the wolf offers, now trotting gracefully at her side.

 **.**

 **.**

Nelly straightens out her nurse's uniform as she approaches Annie's table. She assumes she should just check up on the girl since Annie hasn't made a peep all day so far and has been sitting there, hunched over, and drawing over and over in the new sketchpad she received from her mother last week.

Coming up from behind, Nelly peeks over Annie's shoulder, examining the papers Annie has already ripped out and spread across the table in front of her. To Nelly, it means very little. Annie's drawings are nothing but thick dark lines and smudges, just black on white. There's nothing in the pattern she can recognize. "Hey there, baby," she says softly, causing Annie to cease her pen strokes. "What're you trying to draw today, huh?"

Annie's eyes gloss over and seem distant as she glances down at her own work again and runs her fingertips slowly along the edges of the pad. "The Darkness."

 **.**

 **.**

Fi comes to visit the log cabin they're currently renting until Molly's next concert tour is wrapped up.

Jack's impressed she even has the nerve to show up without calling first.

"'Ello there, Jackie-Boy."

Stunned, he just stares at her in return, hand frozen outstretched on the door handle. Fi however, is unfazed by his confusion and she lets herself inside anyways, stepping right past him towards the kitchen. "Nice chin stubble you've got going on there, bro." She's in all black today; tall black boots, black denim jeans, black leather jacket, black lacey blouse underneath. Her eyelashes are lined with thick dark makeup, and her lipstick is blood red, and her hair is cut short at her shoulders, kept in a curly, unruly stylish mess.

But her eyes themselves—that shrewd _gleam_ in them, definitely alarms Jack the most. It's confident, and conniving. And her smile is no longer pure and sweet like his little sister's smile _should_ be; Fi currently flaunts an everlasting smirk— it's amused, alluring, yet somehow oddly insulting, and it churns his stomach to witness how Clu and Carry just cannot help themselves from gawking at her walking across the room when as greets them.

The bread roll that _was_ in Clu's hand literally drops to the floor (practically along with his jaw).

Fi laughs. "That surprised to see me, are you?"

"Yeah," Jack throws in curtly even before Clu can regather his normal composure, "especially since you haven't in touch with us for almost _two_ years now!"

Fi leans in over the counter, reaching for the fruit bowl next to the two gaping brothers, bites into an apple then turns on her heel to face him again. "Two years?" she teases after thinking it over again. "Huh. It feels like just yesterday when I left Ireland."

"Where _have_ you been, Fiona?"

"I know if I told you, you wouldn't even believe me, Jackie, so don't bother asking. But let's just say there was a nice wide beach with white sand and rocky green mountains that went on for miles."

"Whoa." Clu marvels out loud. "Big mountains?"

Fi shrugs playfully. "Big enough for a dragon to sleep in."

The brothers laugh along with Fi, all carefree in spirit. Only Jack seemed to be immune to...whoever this new Fiona is, who has the boys curling themselves around her little figure as they speak.

"Fiona," he says finally, breaking the attraction again. "Did you talk to Mom by any chance?"

"No, why?"

"I'm visiting Annie tomorrow. You should come with."

They all pause. Fi caught the strange looks on the brothers' faces, embarrassment and shame flickering in their eyes.

"Did I miss something?" she asks them.

"Fi, uh...," Carry is the one who starts this time, "Annie sort of...lost it and now she's in the mental ward."

"Maybe you should go see her," Clu agrees.

"Oh," A shiver runs down Fiona's spine. "Alright."

When Jack is escorted into Annie's room by her hand nurse, Nelly, that afternoon, she's huddled in the corner, knees bent, head buried within her arms.

The sight is somewhat of a shock to his system, but he reminds himself to stay calm and think reasonably. He's been through worse. So just he approaches her slowly after the nurse suggest they try going up one at a time.

"Annie."

She lifts her head and her watery blue eyes come back into focus, making out his presence. "Jack?" she whimpers.

"Yeah, it's me, Annie."

Confirming that he's real, she thrashes to her feet in a heartbeat, reaching for his jacket. She tugs at the material. "Oh my god, Jack! You have to help me! You have help me get out of this place! Get me outta here, please, get me outta here."

"Hey, hey, it's okay." Jack, half-surprised, soothes out her hair that's longer and more matted now and it looks more white than blonde. He continues to make low shushing sounds. Annie thankfully calms down somewhat, swayed by his comfort, and she closes to eyes to regulate her breathing. But she doesn't let go of his shoulders. She clings to him like her very life depends on it.

"Jack, why are you here?" she whispers.

"We came to visit you. We miss you, Annie."

She waits. "We?"

"Yeah, the boys wanted to come too, Annie...but they...they had to work. But Fi came with me today."

"Fiona?" Annie stresses then. "She's here?"

"Yeah, she's right over there. See?"

Annie turns towards the door, eyes locking her gaze on his sister standing beside Nelly. Fi mumbles a short hello, and then that's when Annie tugs herself away from him and lets out a startling, throaty screech of despair and vengeance, and goes charging at Fiona.

"Annie, wait!" Jack can barely react before Annie's hands latch onto Fiona, who immediately starts twisting back out of her grip.

On cue, the nurse interferes, attempting to pull Annie away from his sister and pin her limbs down.

But Annie struggles, raging on in a frenzy. "The ring!" she keeps crying out, hell-bent on targeting Fiona. "Give me the ring!"

"Stop, Annie!" Jack shouts.

Nelly calls for backup.

They are all aware of whose hands are where and who is pulling on who. What they don't see coming is the needle. It sticks Annie in the arm and, feeling relieved, Jack and Fi stray away, panting. A second nurse, a male nurse, rushes into the room and moves forward to help collect Annie off her feet before she falls. He carries Annie out to be placed in isolation after explaining it's just a sedative. She'll sleep it off.

Fiona excuses herself from the room as quickly as possible. Jack thinks she's probably embarrassed or guilty about what just went down. "I'll...go wait in the car."

Jack nods in acknowledgement and then looks to Nelly, who seems bewildered herself. "I'm sorry. I did not expect anything like that to happen."

"Well," Nelly says patiently, "I can't say I understand what happened there myself, but your sister seems to be a bad trigger response. If I were you...I wouldn't bring her again for Annie's sake. It could set back her healing process."

Just cannot wrap his mind around it. It doesn't make much sense. Fiona and Annie seemed to get along just fine when they first met...and besides that, it's been a year or two since they've even seen each other in person. Where did they go wrong? But he knows better to argue with a nurse who has a professional insight on the situation. There's that, and that scuffle was frightening. He can't Fi for not wanting to come back after today's horrible surprise "Oh, okay, right. Bye, Nelly."

The car ride home itself is a silent one.

Fiona raises a hand to her forward in private reflection as she watches the line of trees slide past her window. It's the tale as old as time. She'd made another decision on her own and somehow Annie's very sanity was dragged through the mud because of it. She never meant this to happen.

In her time away, venturing through the Netherworld, she had done her task, fulfilled her destiny as the Chosen Witch, and ultimately defeated the Darkness. Well, okay, maybe _defeated_ was a strong term. She more-so screwed the lid back on the jar of evil forces for a long while. The battle was won (as it was foretold) but, again, she has already learned that nothing ever really goes away for good. Traces will always linger behind. And the Darkness still exists, in other forms, in the nooks and crannies of this earth, in places like Annie's mind.

The reality of it all is sad and hurtful, though there's nothing else she can do. The damage is done; not even her magick spells can help Annie now. Not if she's marked as the enemy. Annie's spirit and body wouldn't be willing or open to her efforts. The best thing is to keep moving onward, and hopefully one day Annie can find ways to heal herself.

By that following morning, regrettably, Jack walks in Fiona repacking her bag early before the other boys would wake.

"Fi?"

She stills when she hears her name and she turns to him. "I'm leaving."

"No." he objects. "You just can't take off again to God knows where and not speak to us for another two years!"

"It's okay, Jack. Really. I'm going back to Ireland. That's where I'll be. To me, that's home now. I just wanna go home."

"Fi...about Annie, it's not your fault."

"Yes, it is. It is my fault."

"How could you think that?"

"I'm the one who left, Jack, and I let Annie stay here, hoping that she'd could just fill my place. And look what happened. The...pressure of this life...it got to her head. Like literally, to the extreme."

Jack shakes his head. "None of us saw it coming, and it wasn't some evil plan you had. And Annie decided to stay with our tour on her own. She made her choices too. It just one of those things that happen out of our control."

Fi releases a small, saddened laugh. He's hearing the words she's saying, but he doesn't understand their meaning. "Jack...if you only knew."

"It doesn't matter," he tries again, circling back. "Just, please stay?"

However, Fiona flashes the plane ticket already clutched in her hand and he realizes that it's set in stone. She's going back. "I promise to call you as soon as I land," she compromises. "And every other day after that if you want. And if I'm not busy."

Jack hangs his head and runs his fingers through his hair. "You're impossible!"

Fi smile returns. "But...?" She doesn't have to be a Chosen Witch to know there's something more hidden beneath that statement. It's just a sister thing.

"But," he sighs, "you are my sister. And I have to let you go."

"Thank you, elder brother of mine." They go in for a hug, and even though it's been forever since they've had a tender family moment like this, it's not unfamiliar or strange. Stepping away, Fiona slaps his chest when she aims for the doorway, bag now slug around her shoulder. "You would have made one hell of a Knight, you know that?"

 **.**

 **.**

Fiona sits settled upon the grassy hillside, watching the golden sunrise light up the Irish mountains as she slowly picks apart one of her grandmother's homemade scones, chewing bit by bit. There is an active breeze this morning, but the weather is overall decent for this time of year and it feels soothing to her skin.

She reflects back on her adventures in the Fae Realm, the Netherworld. She thinks of Fridolf, and of the Crone and the Sages she met on the side of the road, and of the Druid Spirits. She recalls meeting giants and the dwarves, and how King Oberon and Queen Tatiana had blessed her and advised her on to create a magic army. She's more thankful that they've taken Bricriu under their charge by the end of all things. So he'll stay there where he can fit in and be free, albeit supervised. She ponders her mother's positive recovery in rehab and hopes that progress won't be in vain. She also cherishes the fact that she and Jack call each other every week now and they can hold a decent conversation that doesn't end with insults or bickering. Evidently, Annie's better too. She might be released in a year or so if nothing in her new pattern is reset.

More minutes pass, and Fi doesn't even have to look over to the left to know something else is there. She isn't alone anymore. Magick buzzes in her blood from the sudden change in the air. "...Well?" she urges.

"Well, what?" asks the Banshee, who is currently floating nearby.

"Just how many days does my grandmother have left to live?"

The Banshee blinks with her ghostly lashes and cleverly replies with, "You tell me...Fiona."

"I've been having dreams. Nightmares." Fiona adds thoughtfully. "I see her grave, and I hear the Banshee's cry...and then I wake up screaming too."

"But you know why that is, don't you? You're older. You're wiser when it comes the Other Powers. You know what is destined to happen. I wonder...do you regret what giving your grandfather those five extra years of life will cost you after death?"

Fiona is fully aware that demons and faeries are not quite the same race, but her case, she might as well admit that she had sold her soul. She had hindered Death's plan once and the begged the Banshee to spare her grandfather just a little while longer. And by doing so, there had to be a price to pay. Fiona had to fill the gap within the Great Balance of things to make up for her choice. When you take something, you have to give something back. Her eyes have been opened to that.

Fi finally glanced over at her. "Who did you try to save...you know, before?"

"Someone I had loved, long ago," the Banshee confesses, "Just like you did, and I've learned my lesson. I've passed that knowledge onto you. I suppose it runs in our bloodline."

"So when _I_ die...what's going to happen to you?"

"I'll cross over and then you'll become the next Banshee of the O'Sainhan clan."

"Yeah," acknowledges Fiona with the tightening of her lips. Her inner suspicions about that are true. "I thought as much."

So, with that said and in the clear, they simply linger there side by side watching the sun glow brighter in an odd sense of closer. Because, really, they're not so different after all and neither of them is much better or lesser than the other. New or ancient, they are both Irish-blooded girls of the same heritage who became witches once upon a time; and as witches they dared to challenge the Death and the Fates, making a permanent trade between Life and Death that turns witches like them into Banshees upon drawing their last breath. They shall weep and scream and mourn and foresee each and every demise of the present generations, and Fiona will for those to come later on.

Oh, what a life it is, to be an O'Sainhan.


End file.
